Over the Darkened Landscape - By Derryl Murphy Page 0,31

line of drool hung from the corner of his lips to the tattered blanket.

Another scratching sound came from the far corner opposite the door, and when Wells turned to look there he caught a brief glimpse of something small and black. Too brief, though; he feared it had been just a trick of the light or his mind.

Then he looked back at the painting, and froze in horror. The figure now had its face turned towards Wells, and it was a face he recognized well. It was Jane, his wife!

She looked frightful. Her face was long and drawn out, her beautiful hair matted and coarse, and her normally droopy, sad eyes were wide open, a look of terror and extreme agony in them. Her cheekbones were sunken, and she was dressed in her bedclothes.

Shock settled into Wells. He could do nothing but stare at the canvas, horrified by the sight. It took him a moment to lose the feeling of helplessness, but it immediately came back when he realized that the painting had slowly changed positions, the figures moving at some glacial pace so that he did not notice their movements but could see their new placement.

“Dear God,” he whispered.

Another scratching sound came from the right, but Wells was too caught up in the tableau to look. The cat on the right side of the painting, a simple orange alley cat, had bent all the way over and was now using one claw to gouge a line in the flesh of Jane’s cheek. Bright, unnaturally red blood welled up, oozing out of the fresh wound more slowly than blood had the right to flow.

Wells could feel his gorge begin to rise; the taste of bile was sharp in the back of his throat. He turned his head away, and jumped back at the sight that greeted him now, knocking over the canvas in the process.

Wain was still lying on the cot, but now more than a dozen cats stood around him and over him. All were silent, except for the padding of their feet if they moved, and the distant scratching sounds as several dug their claws into Wain’s back, arms and legs. He could see Wain shudder and shake each time a cat scratched him, but the artist also made no sound. One cat, which Wells realized with even greater horror was the orange one from the painting, turned and looked him in the eye, staring calmly at Wells for a second before arching its back, flattening its ears, and hissing.

The sound of the cat broke Wells out of his horrified reverie. He turned and stumbled for the door, kicking the canvas that he had knocked over a moment before. His eyes cast down once more to the abominable thing, like steel to a magnet.

The painting had changed once more. Now four numbers were jaggedly scrawled across the width of it; “1927” it said, in a most sickly gray. One glance at the painting of Jane showed him that she, or at least the figure in the painting, now appeared to be dead, although there was now no blood to be seen. The cats were no longer anywhere in the picture.

He pulled on the door, it wouldn’t open, knocked frantically, and when the door opened he staggered out, gasping for air. He heard the door shut behind him, and disembodied hands held him up while similarly removed voices chattered at him in a fashion beyond comprehension.

Gradually, his breathing calmed down, and his vision returned. He looked around.

An intern was holding him up, and the doctor was examining him worriedly. MacDonald looked on in concern, and the others watched with interest as well. Only the mad that shuffled by paid him no heed, already used to such behaviour on a regular basis.

“Are you all right?” asked the doctor, at the same time that MacDonald asked, “What happened in there?”

Wells waved them both off. “Nothing, nothing,” he said, “Just my claustrophobia acting up, is all. Can we get outside?” Wouldn’t do to tell them what he saw. Just be locked up like Wain and the rest of these poor mad souls.

MacDonald nodded and marched off. The intern who wasn’t holding onto Wells and the two guards hurried to catch him, and Wells slowly followed, careful to keep his eyes down.

The one time he did look up there were three inmates standing only a few feet away. Each man seemed to be unaware that he had a cat sitting on his shoulders,